Thaddeus Jimenez released from prison after wrongful conviction in 1993 shooting

May 05, 2009|By Matthew Walberg, Tribune reporter

Clad in new khaki pants, black shoes and a black dress shirt, Thaddeus Jimenez nervously read his statement to reporters gathered at the county administration building Monday.

The clothes were obviously new since less than three days before, Jimenez had been in prison serving a 45-year sentence for the February 1993 fatal shooting of Eric Morro. But he was released Friday, the same day prosecutors charged Juan Carlos Torres, 30, of Hammond with the crime for which Jimenez was convicted.

"I'm happy to be here today after serving more than 16 years in the Department of Correction," Jimenez said. "I survived because of the love and support I received from my mother, who battled cancer and other illnesses while I was gone and fought to survive so that she could be here when I was released."

Alvarez would not comment on the case against Torres, who is awaiting extradition to Cook County. But Jimenez's attorneys said Torres and a 12-year-old boy, who was convicted as a juvenile in the case, quarreled with Morro over money they believed he owed them.

Jimenez, who was 13 when he was arrested, was a gang member with an already lengthy history of arrests. He was identified within hours as the one who fired the gun and was convicted twice of Morro's murder: in 1994 and in 1997.

In 2005, attorneys and students from the Northwestern University Bluhm Center on Wrongful Convictions and attorneys from Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP began to reinvestigate Jimenez's case. When two key witnesses recanted their statements that Jimenez fired the fatal shot, the group in August 2007 contacted the state's attorney's office, which opened its own investigation.

Northwestern University Law professor Steven Drizin, who appeared with Alvarez to announce Jimenez's exoneration, said the case is proof of why the courts should more carefully examine witness recantations.

"He is the youngest person -- at that time of his arrest -- ever to be exonerated in Illinois, if not the entire country," Drizin said. "The law, as it now stands in our court system, says that recantation statements are presumptively unreliable. But they're not presumptively unreliable."

Alvarez said she does not believe Jimenez's conviction was the result of misconduct by police and prosecutors. Still, she said it's a powerful reminder of the dangers of eyewitness testimony.

"It is something that we are fully cognizant of and something that we stress in the ongoing training of our assistant state's attorneys," Alvarez said. "Police and prosecutors alike have learned a lot and have improved our methods and techniques in the years since this case occurred. There is certainly better forensic evidence, and we have implemented safeguards, such as the videotaping of police interrogations and confessions, to help us in this process."